They’re nae goin’ to tell us the full story. Nae yet.
“Me faither,” Ayla began. “He wasnae a good laird. Nae like Arthur. And they’re punishin’ Arthur for it.”
It was the only explanation they’d be getting, that much was clear.
Abigail opened her mouth, and Marissa could tell she was about to fire off a flurry of questions.
Marissa quickly headed her off.
“Well then,” she began, speaking fast so that Abigail couldn’t interrupt, “we’ll just have to show them tonight. Nae only has Arthur picked the right woman to stand by his side, but he’s picked the right family to align himself with. Clan Reid and McEwan will be long and lastin’ allies to one another. We’ll make them see that.”
Abigail’s mouth snapped shut, her questions dying on her tongue. There would be time for those questions, Marissa was sure.
There was something in the air between the women. Friendship, yes. That much was clear from the moment all five of them had been in the same vicinity. But it went beyond that.
A kinship that she didn’t often recognize in other women. A yearning to be more than what they had been taught to be.
The trust born from that would grow. She knew that eventually, the full story would come out. But that time was not tonight.
No, tonight was for convincing the council to accept her, and continuing to build upon the trust and affection that were beginning to grow between the women in the room with her.
She smiled at them all, going back to her work on Amara’s hair as everyone else broke back into conversation around her. And while her fingers moved and the familiar hum of her sister’svoices filled the air, she found herself for the first time not just thankful for Arthur and the situation he had saved her from, but for the family that their marriage would create.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“She better be here soon.”
Arthur turned, snarling at McKellen. The man had arrived before the cèilidh had startedandwithout the rest of the council, making a bold move.
Arthur had tried hard to placate him, assuring him that his bride-to-be was getting ready for the celebration with her family and his and that she’d be arriving shortly. But as more clansmen arrived, as well as the rest of the council, McKellen had grown more and more insufferable.
“Ye will stop makin’ demands of me, Councilman,” Arthur hissed, bringing his face as close as he dared to the other man’s. “I have done nothin’ but try to be accommodatin’ to ye and the council. But I am at me last straw, and ye willnae like what will happen if I break.”
McKellen’s eyes narrowed on him. “Is that a threat?”
He puffed out his chest, but he couldn’t disguise the way the color had drained from his face.
“It is a promise,” Arthur threatened. “If ye keep disrespectin’ me and makin’ demands of me that arenae yers to make, I will show ye just how much the Savage Laird’s blood runs in me veins.”
It was the wrong thing to say, Arthur knew it the moment the words had left his lips. Using his father’s old nickname, the one that had earned him a reputation of terror rather than respect, had ruined the exact point he had been trying to make.
“That blood is exactly what we’re afraid of,” McKellen said, despite the fear on his face.
Arthur opened his mouth to argue, but the din of the crowd cut him off. The general hum of many people talking at once suddenly died down, and his attention was diverted.
From the raised platform he’d been standing on, the one that held the Laird’s high table, he could see all the way to the arch that opened into the gardens.
There was a group of women standing within it, and immediately his eyes fell on Marissa.
She was at the center. Her hair, which was usually a curly auburn mass that looked windswept around her head, had been meticulously braided away from her face. Delicate white flowershad been placed within the plaits, along with a strip of tartan that perfectly matched the draping around her skirts.
The bodice of her gown hugged her curvy figure, stirring heat into his belly.
She looks ravishing.
And Arthur couldn’t deny, as she and the women accompanying her walked through the archway and into the courtyard, that he wanted nothing more than to ravish her.
He watched from his perch above the crowd as people ducked their heads and whispered. There were a few that pointed at her, gesturing to the crest of Clan Reid that decorated the sash across her chest.
